What's Lost in Murder
by Alfonse Pardieu
Summary: A story written for a class last year based off ten minutes of gameplay in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl. Enjoy.


**A/N: This is a story I wrote for class last year. While considering other fan fics to write, I remembered this piece and decided to post it. It is based off ten minutes of gameplay during which I killed everyone in Rostok. **

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I came in from the west, from the Rostok wilderness. It was a desolate place that had been settled by mercenaries and mutants; a miserable place to be, but the only way in and out of the Yantar research area, where I had chosen to stay that night. It was late afternoon, around six when I entered Rostok. It was raining and I debated as to whether or not I should stay the night before I began my work, it would be dark in about two hours. It was a narrow margin; I would think about it later.

I approached the three guards that stand watch over the passageways out of Rostok into the wilderness to the west, and the army base to the north where Liberation had made their base. I had already infiltrated and killed everyone in the Liberation base, on a mission. I was worried that whoever was alive during my attack had ordered reinforcements, but that was none of my concern at the moment. I would simply have to remember to be careful when I next passed the base.

I took my Sig Sauer 550 rifle and put it back into my pack. There was no reason for them to be concerned with my presence. Yet.

I ran to the bar, as I didn't want to lose too much daylight. I had business with Barkeep, the owner of the 100 Rads Bar, the hub of all Stalker activity. We cut a deal for the things I needed, odds and ends like five RPG rounds, grenades for my grenade launcher, a first-aid kit, and some canned food. At most stores, this arrangement of ware would be a cause for concern, but not in the Zone, and not at the 100 Rads. I paid for my assortment of goods, also purchasing a bottle of vodka and bread, and walked over to a couch to rest, deciding to spend the night.

The Zone was the area hit hardest by the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster of the mid 80's, an area five kilometers long and two kilometers wide south of Chernobyl. After the first disaster however, there was a second one; much deadlier and with graver consequences. The Zone was littered with dangerous mutants, deadly anomalies and copious amounts of radiation.

But also left in the wake of the second disaster were valuable artifacts. These remnants from the radiation released during the second explosion had otherworldly traits nearly invaluable to the two groups that now inhabited the Zone. The military had interest in the artifacts for their traits that decreased bleeding removed radiation from the body and lowered fatigue. Stalkers wanted these artifacts because they sold for a handsome sum.

I am a Stalker. Stalker is an acronym, standing for scavenger, trespasser, adventurer, loner, killer, explorer and robber. This is what I did when I had no employer. I worked, now and then, as an assassin for a man in the Yantar area by the name of Nicolai Ivanov, who was associated in some way with the scientists, who were controlled by the USSR, but none of this mattered. It seemed that in the Zone your loyalty fell with whoever was paying you.

Today, that was one Mr. Ivanov. I had been paid to eliminate the Duty base in the area. This involved both killing everyone in the base, and their leader, General Voronin. A former military commander, he had founded Duty to exercise militant control on Stalkers, what he saw as a more profitable venture.

I am never told why I need to complete my missions, just when they needed to be completed, the precise description of what was required and my pay. I didn't much like the secrecy, but it made sense and it was better than my other occupation of killing for guns and then reselling them for profit.

I woke up with a slight buzz from the vodka I had drunk last night. I don't like to drink the night before I had a job, but nobody's perfect. I ate the rest of the bread and stood up, walking over to a side room.

In the 100 Rads, you can rent a lock box for all of your plunders you have acquired during your time in the Zone, it was expensive but well worth it. Heading over to said lock box, I procured my key , inserted it into the lock and kicked open the lid. I removed three items of necessity to my mission; my rocket propelled grenade launcher, AS Val assault rifle (proudly made in Russia) and a six barreled grenade launcher.

Proceeding to the southernmost reaches of town, I crouched at the head of the last street before leaving down and rifled around for my binoculars. Producing them, I gazed through their lenses at the four sentries stationed at the southernmost entrance of the town. I debated simply using my sniper rifle to kill these four men, but, still a little hung over from the Vodka, I decided explosions would be the best thing to stir me to full sobriety. It also had the lowest margin of error; I removed my grenade launcher from my pack.

Holstering my pistol in case I ran out of ammo with the launcher and things got dicey, I snuck into an alleyway that wrapped around closer to where they were stationed with my grenade launcher at the ready. I ran out, fired three times, and all four men, it appeared, were dead. My first four victims, however, tripped the alarm. From this point in, everyone in town wanted to kill me.

I approached their bodies, looking for a first-aid kit or food or something that I could use. Finding that one man was still hanging on to life, I withdrew my pistol, and fired once into his head. It's a sad thing to see him die in such a pathetic state and not brandishing his gun heroically against a foe, but the only alternative would be to leave him alive, and this was not an option.

After finding two med kits, I turned around and retraced my steps into town, brandishing my VSS Vintorez sniper rifle, eliminated another sentry and worked my way into the building where he had died.

Just off this building was a tin hovel that was falling apart at the seams, and these seams proved an excellent place to insert my sniper rifle. I peered through the scope and found a man sleeping in a warehouse across a courtyard.

I hesitated on the trigger. It wasn't so much a moral or ethical dilemma for me, as I found no ethics or morals in killing. It was one of honor. Killing a man in his sleep I equated to killing a civilian.

Weighing the options, my index finger tensed. If I left him, he would most likely stir in a situation where I was either far away and he could sneak up, or close and I'm not expecting it. Either way, as a member of Duty, he would wish to kill me. Also, it was my mission to kill him. My rifle was propped in the crotch of the tin, trained on his head. I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger. Opening my eyes I saw his limp body. I frowned, shook my head and stood up.

I retrieved my AS Val and moved to the other entrance to the building, which opened into the aforementioned courtyard, which was the south part of a square shaped network of open concrete areas around a main warehouse, myself being positioned at the southwest corner of it. The Duty base's entrance was at the northeast corner of the square. Instead of trying to directly assault the base with it's four guards stationed at its head, I decided to go around the central warehouse, eliminating the sentries at the northwest corner of the base, where I entered.

I peered out around the corner of the doorway, seeing that two or so Duty soldiers were already moving forward to my location. I bolted. I ran for dear life into an L shaped grouping of smaller warehouses that made up the southwest corner of the square.

I encountered another member of Duty in a small house along my path and shot him. He didn't have a fighting chance, but it was out of negligence and poor preparedness. He was facing the wrong direction entirely when I shot him from a visible window adjacent to him. I have occasional pity for weakness, but no mercy for stupidity.

Moving into the second warehouse that ran along the West part of the square, I saw a wounded Duty soldier lying near a fire. I shot him, with a similar pang of remorse, such as I felt when I found the first soldier in this state, but I managed to suppress any noticeable symptoms of what most soldiers considered weakness.

I was continuing forward as I caught the briefest glimpse of a fully capable Duty soldier move behind a stack of concrete barriers. I did not like close quarter combat, CQC as it's known. My reflexes aren't what they used to be, and reflexive aiming and firing is what CQC is known for. I gritted my teeth and followed him around.

A searing pain tore through my body as his armor-piercing bullets buried themselves in my torso and then exited through my back, probably getting caught in my suit as they lost a large majority of their momentum moving through my body.

It wasn't enough to kill me, as my armor was the best money could buy in the Zone. I killed him, and after patching myself up I shot him a few more times, half out of reassurance and half out of malice. I continued on.

I destroyed the second guard post in a very similar manner to the first; several grenades. Retracing my steps, I worked around to the Arena.

This wasn't part of my mission. The owner of the Arena was not associated with Duty and didn't even look twice at me when I entered. I hated this man. There are many reasons, I believed, to kill a man. Money, power, and revenge were the three most common justifications in the Zone. However, killing a man for sport sickens me. The Arena was simply a place where two people (usually rookie Stalkers who needed money) fought to the death. It was mentally scarring, and this man was the mastermind of it all. He sent innocent rookies to their probable deaths simply for the amusement of other Stalkers and money for betting people. When it was over, you were paid close to 5% of the bets, but you're never really the same person.

I shot him without exchanging words and left the Arena. It was time to fulfill the terms of my contract.

I climbed up on the roof of the Arena and then onto the roof of the large central warehouse, from here I had a commanding view of the Duty base. This was why I had purchased the RPGs (no small investment, each one cost as much as some of the cheaper guns.) I armed my RPG Launcher, scoped out the guard post with my binoculars, and began the chaos.

Perhaps it was just for fun, because between the two RPGs I fired, I killed but two men and managed to take several bullets. I had first-aid kits, but those cost money as well.

Switching back to the sniper rifle, a better suiting weapon for the situation, I lit up the base from the roof, killing three or four men, it was hard to keep track. As I descended from the roof, thinking the base was sufficiently clear to begin assaulting the headquarters of Duty inside the base, I paid special attention to everything behind me. It was not fun to be shot from behind.

Entering the base and approaching the HQ, I cleaned out the remaining Duty guards with my grenade launcher, and, switching to more conservative thrown grenades, I threw one into the window near the entrance to the HQ, where I believed a guard to be hiding. The grenade killed him.

Peering into the window, I began to sweat. It wasn't often that I got nervous on assignments, I was usually very collected. This was different, I have never assaulted a group this well-organized or well armed. They had the same rifle that I did, the AS Val. It had a high muzzle velocity and used armor piercing ammo, a deadly combination that, in experienced hands, can kill someone easily. Normally those experienced hands were mine, but that wasn't the case here.

I dispatched of another guard. Waiting for several moments to see if anyone else would appear around the corner, I decided to move into the base. I only had one first-aid kit left, so I was nervous. If I was shot and hurt badly, I would only have one chance to heal myself. After that, it was a downward spiral of shock and someone coming up behind me and putting a bullet in my head.

I entered the building, and moved down into a corridor that led to the main room. I knew there were several guards down there at any given time, but I had no idea as to how many had come out and been killed by me.

As I rounded a corner, I was shot at. I ducked behind the corner, forming a plan. I didn't want to risk needing to use my last first aid kit.

I threw a grenade from behind cover, although it was short of where my would-be assailants stood, it accomplished it's goal. As the smoke was clearing, I rounded the corner, and shot my victims as the smoke cleared. I walked forward, and saw a guard lying dead. Next to him, I saw the body of General Voronin.

I stopped momentarily and looked at his lifeless eyes. They say eyes are windows into the soul, and I believe there is some truth to this. But as I looked into his eyes, I could only conclude that either his eyes were deceiving me or his soul was not as tortured as mine. People say my eyes are hard. They convey pain and indifference at the same time, that this came from killing many men. I knew the General had killed scores of men, both by his hand and through command, but his eyes still conveyed an almost fatherly look, even posthumously. Perhaps his soul was incorruptible. Perhaps the aforementioned axiom had no truth, I had no time to ponder this; I had to clear the base.

I moved into the planning room slowly, seeing one guard with his back turned to be and the shoulder of another one a ways away. I opened fire, which proved to be a mistake. The man strafed my bullets and professionally returned fire, bringing me within inches of death. I was able to briefly incapacitate him with a shot to the leg as I hobbled off to use my remaining first aid kit.

As I backed into the hallway outside the planning room, another man moved out to confront me, I sprayed him from the other end of the hallway, nearly exhausting my clip. I had six bullets left when the final man from the room came out and opened fire. I was hit in the arm, not badly, when I was beginning to return fire. I ran out of bullets.

War is a strange thing. Seemingly random things like a gun jamming or someone running out of bullets can decide who lives and who dies. When I ran out of bullets, the man easily could have destroyed me on the spot. I don't know if he encountered a similar problem or spared me so that, should I die, it would be an honorable one. I shall never know, as the secret died with him. Not without a fight though, I was again brought again within inches of death as I killed the last three men in the bunker.

I hobbled over to a couch in the corner and sat down to rest, obviously after clearing the room. I wanted to rest and to get out of there at the same time, but I knew that escaping would be impossible in my crippled state. Sleep would help, though. I was hurt, but there was no immediate danger of dying.

My radio buzzed to life as one Mr. Ivanov contacted me. I picked up, still catching my breath.

"Yeah?" I asked, trying to regain my composure.

"Are you done? Did you kill everyone that had anything to do with Duty in that town?" Ivanov's voice was thin and had a heavy Russian accent. It wasn't pleasant to listen to.

"Of course, after all, it is the deadline. I never miss one." I couldn't help but sounding a little smug, even in my current state.

"Well-" A pause. "you've got your work cut out for you getting out of there. I've received reports of Freedom moving down into Rostok to fight Duty, a turf war."

I swore. Freedom was the last entity I wanted or needed to deal with at this point.

"So, Nicolai, what do you propose I do?"

"I could care less, Stalker. Your assignment is completed. If you make it out to me alive, I'll pay you. Other than that, it's none of my concern."

I threw my head back and closed my eyes, I couldn't believe my luck. I heard footsteps down the stairs. A grenade. There was no way around it, I put my arms up in a futile attempt to avoid the inevitable.

A bit dazed, I found myself unable to move. It occurred to me that I was on the floor a few feet from the couch I was sitting on, bleeding profusely from below the knee. I would die if I didn't get it bandaged. Two Liberation soldiers walked over, examining my body.

"Who is it?" One said.

"It's hard to say for sure, he's in pretty rough shape. Not wearing Duty stuff."

"Hey, isn't it that guy that wiped out the base we had set up in army warehouse?"

"Yeah, yeah it is. Well, that's one less thing we need to worry about. Radio back to base and tell them Duty has been eliminated from Rostok, and the guy that was hassling us is dead too."

"Two for one."

"I wonder if he did this."

"Who's to know, and furthermore, who cares? Everyone is dead here. Let's go."

Footsteps out.

As I lay there, dying, it occurred to me that in killing there was no true victory. It is a lost cause; the only end achieved in killing is money and revenge- hollow victories in themselves. This death I have met, seems to validate everything I believed about killing, albeit subconscious beliefs that I may have never fully acknowledged before it was too late; before now. There are no morals. There are no ethics. Killing destroys that inside you, and without that, you can't stop the behavior that will eventually destroy you.

It was an interesting thought that faded as I lost consciousness and perished in the center of the destruction that had happened at my hand.


End file.
